The End Is Near: Gamestop accepting retro game trade-ins

[Kriven]

I feel like this is also a response to the move towards digital distribution. Modern games have smaller manufacture runs, and many industry leaders are talking about the death of the physical disc. If that were to happen, GameStop's entire purpose for being would collapse. It makes sense that they would switch gears a little bit, since a large portion of the old games haven't yet been ported to digital services.

I'm not saying this is the way the industry will go as an objective statement, but I think it's probably a major factor in why GameStop would decide do to this. They're just trying to build a revenue buffer for the possibility that this generation might be the last to see physical games.